


A Lingering Hope

by PastaFossa



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Deserves Better, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Betaed, Character Death Fix, Crylo Ren, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Finn Being A Bro, Fix-It, HAPPY FUCKING ENDING, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Cries Too, Romance, Spoilers, We Are Taking Over The Ship Please Remain Calm, the one we all deserve, we all cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastaFossa/pseuds/PastaFossa
Summary: 'Against the cold of the empty temple, a warmth began to grow at her shoulder. The comforting scent of incense and worn timber drifted past. Then, a rough, familiar voice."He yet lives, but barely. For now."'---For all my fellow Ben Solo fangirls. He deserves better, and we deserve a fix. Let this soothe your pain.Spoilers for Rise of Skywalker, obviously.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 28
Kudos: 278





	A Lingering Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Let's give Ben Solo and Rey the ending they deserved, shall we? 
> 
> Here's your happy ending, my friends. <3

Where once before the temple's vast open space—groaning under the weight of darkness and rage, under the mighty crack of thunder overhead and the angry spitting of whirling blades… where before it had been so full as to choke her, now there was nothing.  
  
The silence was deafening, and it terrified her in a way she could not name.  
  
"Ben?"   
  
Rey's call went unanswered, the quiet sinking razor edged claws into her heart. She crawled, bleeding knees scraping painfully across the broken, dust-smeared stone.   
  
He was pale, so very pale beneath the dirt and blood, dark circles under his eyes. Her battered fingers pressed gently to his cold cheek, then his jaw, finally dropping lower to his broad chest, her palm flattened in a frantic search for the telltale rise and fall that signaled life.   
  
"Ben, don't do this to me. Not now," she whispered, angrily swiping away the tears that had begun to spill from her eyes. This couldn't be the end, not when they'd come so far: Palpatine gone, the Sith and the First Order vanquished… To now lose not just Han and Leia and Luke, but Ben too—the only one who'd ever truly understood her, just when they'd finally found freedom in the Light…   
  
Against the cold of the empty temple, a warmth began to grow at her shoulder. The comforting scent of incense and worn timber drifted past. Then, a rough, familiar voice.   
  
_"He yet lives, but barely. For now."  
  
_ She didn't dare look away from Ben, as if the slightest falter in her attention might allow his soul to escape. "Will he die?" Her voice echoed through the chamber, the sound thrown back at her as if in mockery.  
  
 _'Will he die?'  
  
_ _'Will he die?'  
  
_ _'Will he, will he, will he…'  
  
_ Luke's ghost moved closer, kneeling beside her. His gaze burned a hole into her, examining her closely, before his eyes shifted to Ben's still form. The air grew solemn and he sighed. _"Maybe. He is… weak now. Hanging by a thread."_   
  
"But there's a chance?" She finally met Luke's eyes, working her jaw and clenching her hand against the worn fabric of Ben's tunic. "A chance I can save him? If there's even the slightest—"  
  
 _"You've already helped save him, Rey-From-Somewhere."  
  
_ She let out a growl. Now wasn't the time for these sorts of games. "But will he _live_? Is there a chance? No vague answers," she snapped, before faltering as she glanced back down. Her tone softened to a mournful plea. "Give me something real, Master Skywalker. _Please._ "   
  
Luke grunted, and as he stood his ephemeral form began to fade. His voice, however, lingered.   
  
_"He might live, if you hurry. We're Skywalkers, after all; we always were stubborn._ "   
  
She turned back to Ben, leaning forward to brush her lips across his forehead.   
  
"And I can be stubborn, too."  
  


* * *

It took what little strength she had left to carry Ben out, even with the assistance of the Force.   
  
It was easier to call for the Falcon. Explaining to Finn and Lando why they also needed to bring a med team to help save the former Supreme Leader of the First Order? That took another kind of strength entirely.   
  
At least until Chewie made his position clear. There wasn’t much arguing from the Falcon after that. Even so, she wasn’t entirely sure what sort of reception they’d receive on board. The medical team was the picture of neutrality—unknowing, as they were, of just who they were treating. It was the others—Finn, and Chewie especially—that worried her. What if Chewie had allowed her to bring Ben aboard only to seek revenge for Han?  
  
  
“Chewie, just wait, please,” she pleaded, holding her arms wide to block his entrance to the nook where Ben lay. The medical team worked quickly and efficiently behind her, hooking Ben up to a multitude of tubes and wires, calling out readings and prepping him for connection to the machines that just might keep him alive. “He’s not—”  
  
The Wookie’s furious roar, the force and strength behind it, was enough to rock her back on her heels. There were yelps and shouts of fear from the medical team behind her and for a moment, a heartbroken moment, she wondered if she’d be forced to stop him, one of her dearest friends.   
  
_‘Let him pass.’  
  
_ The soft whisper came from somewhere beyond her, far distant and yet deep inside her. The sensation of a gentle hand at her shoulder reassured her, and she could almost smell Leia’s perfume in the stagnant, stale recycled air of the Falcon.  
  
She moved aside.   
  
Chewie pushed past her without a second thought, the massive bulk of him crouching as he entered the small space. The medical team was clearly uneasy, edging away in fear but she held up her hand to stop them. “No! Please, just… work around him. He won’t hurt you, I promise.”  
  
Chewie stood there unmoving by Ben’s side for long seconds, staring down as the medical team reluctantly went back to their tasks. Rey wasn’t sure what was happening as moments came and went. She only knew that this… _needed_ to happen, as surely as rain needed to fall.   
  
With a soft, growling moan the Wookie knelt beside Ben, reaching one great, furred hand out to tenderly stroke across his hair as a parent might their child.   
  
Rey blinked, flashes of vision, of… _something_ racing through her mind. _Memory_ , she realized. _Ben’s_ _memories._ With the transfer of his life energy to her—the energy that had _saved_ her—she’d received some of his memories, too. Here, a young Ben, hair long and scruffy as he scrambled giggling up Chewie’s back. There, massive trunk-like arms wrapped around Ben tight as the boy buried his face into Chewie’s fur with a muffled sob.  
  
More memories flickered by, too many to count.   
  
She’d never considered what this must be like for Chewie: to spend so long with Han and Leia and Luke, and then to help raise Ben… only to watch his adopted family tear itself apart, to lose them one by one, to lose them to each other and to time, to sacrifice. And now, only Ben left… just Ben.  
  
She sucked in a shaky breath, forcing down the rush of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her as she shuffled closer, coming to stand at the Wookie’s elbow.   
  
Chewie made a plaintive sound, eyes remaining on Ben’s still form. He looked so small and fragile there on the bed, bloody and surrounded by wires and tubes and machinery. This was a far cry from the dark menace he’d been before. Not the great and terrible Kylo Ren; this was vulnerable, _human_ Ben Solo.  
  
“I don’t know if he’ll live,” she whispered, “but we’re going to try.”

  
  


* * *

As far as the Resistance and its allied planets were concerned: Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, was dead, killed during the final battle in the skies over Exegol. It was no real loss.   
  
Of greater note in the following days was a rumor: General Leia’s son, long believed to have died with his fellow padawans at the burning of the Jedi Temple, was not only _alive_ , but had come out of hiding in order to fight alongside the Resistance in its darkest hour.   
  
Some said he’d been with Luke Skywalker the whole time, having been spirited away in secret in order to preserve the royal bloodline. Others claimed he’d willingly had his memory wiped to protect himself, and the Force itself had intervened and restored his memory so that he could return to assist those in need.   
  
Either way, they were just rumors for now.  
  
  
  


* * *

“Why won’t he wake up?” Rey asked quietly. “It’s been days.”  
  
She’d long-since claimed the chair nearest to Ben, refusing to leave the private room set aside for him. The medical team had given up on removing her, quickly growing used to moving around her as she kept her vigil. She needed to be here when he woke up. Not if— _when.  
  
_ She glanced up at Leia’s faint, gauzy form where the ghost stood on the other side of the bed. “The doctors said they can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. Everything's been fixed.”  
  
Leia gave her a sad smile, crows feet crinkling at the corners of her eyes. _“My son’s true wounds aren’t something they can detect on their scans, I’m afraid. Nor something they can fix.”  
  
_ “But what about me, could I fix it? I’ve done it before, and he did it to me.” She picked at the sterile, scratchy blanket they’d lain across Ben. She was growing to hate it; she’d get him a better one, even if she had to steal it.   
  
_“It wouldn’t do any good, not now. It’s up to him, what happens. Whether he lives, or passes on.”  
  
_ “That’s not good enough!” Rey stood angrily, shoving her chair back as she began to pace. The more she moved however, the more her despair grew. She turned to jab a finger at Leia, baring her teeth as she snarled, "thousands of generations of Jedi were behind me to help stop Palpatine! Why can’t you all help _save him?_ He’s your son!”  
  
The energy grew electric in the room as Leia’s ghost leveled Rey with a flat stare.   
  
_“I’m aware of whose son he is, child._ ” The crack of Leia’s voice shook Rey out of it, and she scrubbed her hands through her hair as she dropped her eyes with a quiet apology. Leia’s tone softened. _“Rey, not everything can be fixed with the Force. Ben sacrificed everything he had for you. The Force can’t undo that; It won’t. A gift like that can’t be taken back.”  
  
_ “It’s not fair," she choked out, sinking back into her chair as the grief welled up in her anew. “After everything, it’s just not fair. I don’t… I don’t want him to…” _  
  
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”_

  
  


* * *

Days stretched into weeks, and Ben remained still. He wasn’t getting _worse,_ according to the doctors. He just… wasn’t waking up. It became a habit whenever she was with him to take his hand, brushing her lips across his scarred, battered knuckles and infusing her breath with a touch of life. She wasn’t sure if it made a difference, but she liked to think it added a little color back to his face, and let him know she was there with him.   
  
On some days she read to him as she sat at his bedside. Other days she tinkered with her latest project—her own lightsaber.  
  
“I’m told all Jedi make their own at some point,” she said to him, glancing up. “I’m open to suggestions, Ben, if you have them."  
  
No answer… never an answer. And as much as she hated it, there were things that desperately, _desperately_ needed doing. She kept her trips away short, never far for longer than a few days even if it meant losing sleep on the return journey.   
  
Her friends visited her when they could, checking in to ensure she’d been eating and taking care of herself. Finn, growing stronger in the Force by the day, seemed to have reached some sort of placid acceptance over the whole thing.  
  
“I figure you got all the Jedi who ever lived whispering in your ear and it worked out before.” He shrugged. “Why stop believing now after they saved our asses?”  
  
“You’re handling this way too well,” Poe grumbled sarcastically from his position on the other side of the table, gesturing with his fork. “What dirt’s she got on you, babe? Gambling debt?”  
  
“I already told you,” Finn sighed. “It’s a fe—"  
  
“ _Yes yes_ , a feeling, I get it. You _Force_ people, I swear.  
  
“You love it.”  
  
“I’m just saying, if he goes all homicidal on us with the laser sword again, the Jedi ancestors better pick up the tab. I don’t care how dusty and ancient they are."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Weeks stretched into months.   
  
Ben slept.  
  
Rey returned Luke and Leia’s sabers to the sands. 

* * *

"We received an urgent message for you while you were in the field, Ma'am."  
  
"Tell me it's not Senator Ak'toshka again," she sighed, waving off the Resistance camp's medical droid that had been hovering over her for the past ten minutes. She could heal when she was back by Ben's side. "If so, please remind him that I've repeatedly made it clear his planet is too far for me to—"  
  
"It's not that, Ma'am. It's from Finn. He says it's about the patient?"  
  
Hope and fear gripped her in equal measure as she raced to board the Falcon where she could listen to Finn's message in privacy. Once inside the cockpit, she lifted the headset to her ears and—with shaking hands—keyed in the code that would allow her to hear Finn's message.  
  
BB-8 whistled softly beside her, nudging her leg.  
  
"He's fine," she whispered. "He has to be."  
  
The message itself was short, Finn's voice unsteady and threaded deep with worry.   
  
_"I heard him call for you. Not physically, but more… I think you need to get back here right away."  
  
_ Her heart sank. 

* * *

According to Finn, he'd heard Ben's voice calling out to her not once, not twice, but three times. It had been weak, a soft plea, but the sound itself had echoed inside Finn's head.   
  
As she dodged various officers and Resistance members, racing down corridors towards Ben's room, she stretched out her senses, desperate to hear his call.  
  
A hushed return echo, soft and frail as mist.  
  
Was she too late?  
  
 _'Hurry.'  
  
_ The thought goaded her, giving her feet wings as she pushed herself faster and faster until at last she skidded into Ben's room.   
  
Like always, he lay still and quiet.  
  
"Ben?"   
  
She slipped towards him, reaching out to take his hand.   
  
He'd lost much of his mass over the past few months, muscles atrophying from lack of use as he remained unmoving. His cheeks were sunken, jutting bones so sharp now they looked as if they might slice her open if she pressed her fingers to them, and the bruised darkness beneath his eyes had only deepened.   
  
_'He is far.'  
  
_ Fading away.  
  
 _'He reaches for you. Call to him.'  
  
_ "Ben, I'm here," she whispered. "Come back, please."  
  
 _'Call to him.'  
  
_ Her eyes closed instinctively, and as she centered herself she tried again, letting her words slip through the ties of their bond. "Ben, please come back to me. I can't—" she swallowed hard, biting back her tears and took a deep breath.  
  
 _'Call to him.'  
  
_ "I need you, Ben. I can't do this without you. _"_ In her mind she could see it, a white thread flowing from her to him, a lifeline of warmth and affection, everything she felt for him.  
  
 _'Rey?'  
  
_ Soft, so very faint and far away.  
  
 _'Call to him.'  
  
_ "Ben, please, I…"  
  
 _'Call to him!'  
  
_ Tears rolled down her cheeks freely as she grasped his hand, lifting it to her lips and holding it there to breathe her words into his skin.   
  
"I love you, Ben Solo."   
  
Quiet. Endless quiet, her words a stone dropped into a still pond.   
  
And then—  
  
 _Life.  
  
_ With a heaving gasp, Ben Solo's brown eyes fluttered open as he clenched his hand tight to hers.   
  
"Ben!"   
  
"Rey," he rasped, voice cracking as he began to shake, "Rey…"   
  
She reached out, pressing her hand to his cheek, hardly believing he was here at last with her after so long. He leaned his face into her hand, tearful eyes closing as he soaked in her warmth like a flower turned towards the sun.   
  
" _Ben_ —"  
  
"I heard you, Rey, _Rey, I_ —"  
  
Her lips met his, and he opened to her with shaking breath and a soft, broken sound, a muffled sob to match hers as her fingers tangled in his dark hair and he lifted a reverent, trembling hand to brush against her face.  
  
When she pulled away she rested her forehead against his, letting out a watery laugh and smiling through her tears.   
  
The smile he returned to her was one she would treasure for the rest of their days.  
  
"Welcome back, Ben Solo."   
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> As far as I'm concerned, this is what ACTUALLY happened and I will hear no arguments otherwise. 
> 
> #BenSoloLives  
> #ReyloForever


End file.
